


Homeward Bound

by Anonymous



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Drinking, Grooming, Hurt Aziraphale (Good Omens), Hurt Crowley (Good Omens), Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Non-Graphic Rape/Non-Con, Sexual Harassment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-03
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2020-10-06 02:20:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 7
Words: 9,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20499266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: The night after the world failed to end, Aziraphale and Crowley consider what they must do to ensure one another's survival. It's not just the inevitable executions that have them worried- it's the inevitable reception party they'll have to contend with before the execution that's the sticking point.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a combination of two prompts. 
> 
> In the first: "Hell doesn't have an HR department (or, if it does, it does not take complaints). Interpersonal conflict is left up to the demons themselves to settle. Usually physically. As long as no one gets outright killed (or kept from doing important work), absolutely no one is going to give a fuck what anyone does to you. Even if you're Satan's favorite. In fact, being Satan's favorite might work against you if you keep coming up with complicated schemes that no one understands like you think you're soooo clever and getting rewarded for it, instead of rising through the ranks through good old fashioned torture and tempting."
> 
> And in the second: "Gabriel is That kind of horrible boss, full of slightly inappropriate comments, friendly arms around the shoulder that are a little too friendly, and so on. The kind you would report to HR, except I expect celestial HR is a nightmare of paperwork, and upper management clearly isn't listening, so what's the point? Angels lower in the chain of command have mostly learned to grin and bear it and not be stuck alone in an elevator with him if they can help it (unless maybe they're angling for a promotion or a favor, I could see him dangling opportunities in front of someone he's interested in)."
> 
> My brain immediately went to the maximum angst zone of "both of these, but neither one of them has been able to talk about it until the big switcheroo happens and they absolutely have to talk about it."

In an intimidatingly modern apartment in Mayfair, two man-shaped beings sat on an uncomfortable couch. Before them is a low, highly-polished coffee table, and on it is a bottle of absinthe and a scrap of prophecy. 

The two man-shaped beings are an angel (the one with the blond curly hair, a little chubby and dressed in clothing that might charitably be described as vintage) and a demon (the gangly one with red hair, dressed in black right up to his sunglasses). They are meant to be hereditary enemies. They are meant to be trying very hard to kill one another right now as the world burns with the force of two celestial armies clashing. Instead they’d bumbled their way into playing a minor role in preventing the Apocalypse, and earned the ire of both Heaven and Hell as they did. 

They’ve earned themselves the death sentence. Hellfire for the angel, whose name is Aziraphale, and holy water for the demon, who is named Crowley. They’ll be taken back to their respective realms, and then executed- most likely by tomorrow, hopefully not tonight. They really need this time, this night.

The absinthe is good, as far as absinthe goes. A stronger spirit than they normally would imbibe, particularly since the portions in their glasses haven’t been watered down at all. Neither one of them is drinking, which is also different from the norm, considering the trying circumstances. Generally, when things have suddenly gotten very much more stressful, they are of the opinion that a clear head is something that future Crowley and future Aziraphale can keep for themselves. But they have only tonight to sort through their problems, or else there won’t be a future for either of them. 

The prophecy before them has given them a way out. Neither one of them has managed to say as much so far. The issue at hand, of course, is that as far as each of them is concerned the solution is nearly as bad as the problem. If it were only there own lives at stake, they wouldn’t even consider it, but of course, that’s not the case. 

That seems like the first dilemma, or at least the foremost dilemma on their minds. They will _both_ die if they don’t do this. 

_He will die if I don’t give him my body to use and let him be dragged into my home wearing it. He will live if I do, but..._

That’s another problem: what is meant to be home for either of them hasn’t been home if quite some time, if it ever had been to begin with. Even under normal circumstances, they would not be warmly received. 

It’s Crowley who decides to make the first move. He wants to drink; he places his glass down on the table, untouched. He feels like maybe he should remove his sunglasses, but pushes them up the bridge of his nose instead. 

“Right. Let’s get this over with,” he says. 

Aziraphale is not able to articulate what he wants right now, and is relieved, as ever, to hear the words he’s been struggling to form come out of the demon’s mouth. He manages a tight nod and sets down his glass, also untouched, next to Crowley’s. 

“The prophecy. It’s pretty straightforward, as far as prophecies go,” Crowley says, gesturing down at the scrap of paper. “At least, it is for, you know, two ethereal-slash-occult beings with our abilities and imaginations.”

Aziraphale manages another tight nod. 

“We’ve got to switch places. We do that, and we’ll most likely live.” Crowley takes a deep breath he should not, strictly speaking, need to take. 

Aziraphale scrounges up another nod. 

“That means you’ll be going into Hell, and that you’ll look like me as you do,” Crowley says. 

“Yes,” Aziraphale says. “And you’ll be going to Heaven, where everyone will presume you are me.” His voice is oddly quiet. 

“Don’t worry about that,” Crowley says with a wave of his hand. “I’ve been. I know what they’re like up there.”

“You really don-”

“Would you pleassse jussst let me say thissssss?” Crowley hissed. He grimaces. He hadn’t meant to start hissing. “Look. Hell is- Hell is bad. It’s- you have no idea how bad it gets, especially if you’re me.”

Aziraphale is still trying to figure out how to explain that Heaven isn’t as Crowley remembers it- still collating several centuries worth of memories he generally tries not to think about. It gives him an unreadable expression as he tries to absorb Crowley’s words as well. “You’ve always said that they love you down there,” he says slowly.

“They do. They really do.” Crowley’s laughter is a bitter thing, that bubbles out of his throat with all the grace of a falling angel. “They can’t get enough of me. That’s the problem.”


	2. Chapter 2

It’s often said that there is no point in torturing a demon, because there is no pain that can ever compare with the Fall. Like many things said about demons, this is very technically correct and also extremely misleading. 

There is no pain that can compare to the pain of Falling, this much is true. But torture has never been about causing people the most physical pain they could possibly ever experience, and this was particularly true when it came to the _invention_ of torture. 

Angels invent incarceration, as a way to stop others from following Satan out of God’s good graces. It backfires spectacularly. An angel is an eternal being: the logic is, then, that it would do an angel of suspect loyalties no damage to be locked up alone until things could be sorted out. Several desperate jailbreaks swelling the ranks of the rebel angels later, it turns out that this is a mistake, but the damage to Heaven is already done. 

War is a joint effort between angels and demons, in a very biblical sense. Michael and Satan had been lovers, after all. Back in the days when he’d been Sataniel, when she’d called him her morningstar as an endearment, the word was that they’d been created soulmates. And then he Fell. And then they had a daughter. They had War, the first child ever to be born rather than crafted directly from the Almighty’s own hands, and all had flocked to her birth. 

Torture is a demonic invention. They combine the second and third worst experiences any of them had ever had- incarceration and war- and that’s what they come up with: torture. At first it is beatings in corners. And then, as Hell develops, it starts to involve bindings and weapons. Rooms become cells; halls become torture chambers; weapons become specialized implements. Torture is about fear and helplessness. It’s about humiliation and capitulation. Physical pain is just another tool to bring about those results. Because it’s true: nothing done in Hell can compare to the pain of Falling there from Heaven. 

That doesn’t mean that enough pain in the wrong place can’t remind you of it. 

They tear each other to shreds in those early days, the Hellish Host. Bereft of every comfort they have ever known, torn from their only home into this festering pit of darkness and sulfur, angry and hurting and twisted into bodies that are not quite wholly their own and never truly can be again, they take it out on each other. That’s Crowley’s first lesson about damnation, and perhaps the one he takes most deeply to heart: Hell is created when enough people in enough pain decide to take it out on one another. 

He’s there for the advent of torture, though he’s not exactly active at the time. He’s not a big fan of torture, and especially not a big fan of _being_ tortured, thanks. He’s Crawley, then: a wily serpent that slips through cracks too small for others to follow. It only makes sense, when word reaches them that the first humans have arrived, for Satan to send him up. He’s avoided his fellow demons well enough. He might very well stand a chance against the angels, to slip in and corrupt the humans.

It’s the humans who invent rape. 

Back in those days, a demon wouldn’t have ever thought to rape, as it’s a corruption of sex. Sex, in the pre-Fall days, at least, happened in Heaven frequently. It’s an expression of love, an act of fondness and affection, much like kisses and hugs and wing grooming. It requires a bit more effort than any of those things- too much effort by half, for many- but no one ever thinks of it as something that might be shameful. No one ever thinks of it as something that might be a weapon. 

As an expression of love, the demons presume sex is an avenue closed to them and think no more of it- or, at least, keep very quiet about whatever thoughts they might have on the subject- until this corrupted form of it rears its ugly head. Even Crowley, who has quite a bone to pick with God about it, will admit quite freely that Mesopotamia pre-Flood had been really very shit. It must also be said that, post-Flood, it is also really very shit, it’s just now shit piled on top of a load of bloated corpses, with a lot of souls in Hell spilling out their every sinful innovation. 

Once it is invented, once it’s clear that it’s been invented, the demons fall upon it like ants over a picnic. Hell is a much more built-up place, then. There are far fewer caverns with little nooks and crannies for him to slither into, and he has a job now, a job he would dearly love to keep as it gets him out of Hell more often than not. That means reporting in to his bosses, it means making presentations and attending meetings, and it means keeping an eye on office politics and making himself known. 

It means he doesn’t have the option of running and hiding anymore. Not all the time, at least.


	3. Chapter 3

He wins the first few times someone tries to back him into a corner. Of course he does. He’s clever, and pragmatic, and it’s not like the people who stay Downstairs are the only ones who pick up tricks from the humans. Is War amusing herself with them while she waits for Armageddon to bring her parents back together, or are the humans so enamored of her that they can’t help but chase after her? It’s the sort of question that’s good for bothering Aziraphale with over some beer, but isn’t really relevant to his survival. 

What is relevant to his survival is the matter of what happens when he finally loses a fight. 

It’s his wings that cost him that first one. Spreading them out is an instinct, as threatening a gesture as hissing with his fangs exposed. But it also makes them vulnerable, and the threat of any kind of lasting damage to one’s wings is enough to give any demon pause. They all remembered how it had felt, to have their wings burn as they Fell.

Burning isn’t what Crowley feels as Ocypete takes him down. Instead of hellfire she has hooks on chains. They cut into the flesh of his wings and bind him in place. He doesn’t stop fighting at all, not that first time. Even when he cannot move without causing himself still more pain, even as she takes from him, he can’t help but spit venom at her, both metaphorical and literal. It splatters in her eye. She shrieks, and tears at him, and he spits again, blind with pain and fury. He doesn’t manage to land another hit.

It’s worse when she’s done. She unbinds him, because he has a job to do, and she doesn’t want to keep him from it, not really, not when it would upset the boss. It’s worse, then, because without the chains he can now tell how much of his movement is restricted by pain rather than metal, he can see, now, how much feather and skin and blood has been rent from his body. 

It’s nothing vital, that she’s clawed from him. It’s just pain, it’s just pieces of him that he’d thought were his and his alone. 

It also makes it impossible to fly out of there. He transforms into a snake and goes on his way. 

Next time, he keeps his wings tucked in tight where no one can get to them without a great deal of effort. He learns.

He learns, over the millennia, how to mitigate: mitigate the risk, mitigate the pain, mitigate the time that gets wasted on it. And it is time wasted, he’s always very clear about that: _Ladies, gentlemen, demons of all genders, let’s get this over with, shall we? I have places to go, people to tempt, and a job to do. Chop chop!_

The shortest version of the politics of Hell is this: what Satan wants, Satan gets, and Satan wants Crowley at liberty. He has, if not a fondness for Crowley, than a certain preference, like a particularly fine vintage of wine that’s left in the cellar for some future unspecified special occasion. Crowley ensures this, with his creativity with getting the humans to damn themselves, and with his own occasional stokes of brilliant mythopoeic Temptations, which he always credits to Satan. _Try the apple, Eve, it’s delicious. Come on then, Jesus, at least let me show you the world you’ll be missing._ Satan makes his favor known, with big gestures like entrusting his son to Crowley, and little ones like calling him _darling_. 

It never fails to make him terrified, all those _darlings_ Satan has called him by. He must know it, and he might even be doing it for Crowley’s terror. It’s also worth mentioning that Satan might be the only high-ranking demon to never fuck him. 

Not yet, anyway.

The longer, more detailed version of it is less straightforward, but Crowley made the stars once. He can adapt. (The stars were easier. If they burned him, it wasn’t out of malice, it was because they didn’t know how to do anything but burn.)

Beelzebub is Satan’s second-in-command. They always have been, but it wasn’t preordained that they always would be. They keep their position out of spiteful stubbornness and sharp acumen. Dagon is their most loyal lieutenant, but her loyalties waver when she thinks there’s a chance that Beelzebub will lose their grip on things. It’s happened, once or twice over the millennia, but normally they’re too good at playing the various factions off of one another. There’s Hastur and Ligur, unable to be separated, always at one another’s backs. There’s Belphegor, slow and still the way a mountain is before an avalanche. There’s Mammon, dripping in precious metals and stones, so soft until pushed. There’s Mulciber, the tinkerer, always busy but never quite too busy for a chance to get ahead. There’s Ashtoreth, sharp like knives and heels and ruthless pragmatism. There’s Leviathan, the monster of all monsters. 

There have been others, of course: Berith, Gressil, Verrine, Belial, Abaddon, Pythius, Minos, Luvart, and more. They’re still down there, of course, just diminished. Not quite the threats they once were. (They’re the sort of beings he has nightmares about, but they aren’t relevant to the matter of Aziraphale’s survival.)

He learns to read the room, when he goes down to Hell for performance reviews, meetings, and presentations. Where is the power now, and how has it shifted? Which alliances are in effect, and are they amicable or forced? How is this going to come out at him?

He is Satan’s most highly preferred tempter. That means that he’s not going to be hurt so badly that he can’t pick himself up afterwards, and he’s not going to be kept somewhere for a century or so until they grow bored of him. It doesn’t mean he’s not going to be attacked. Quite the opposite, really. 

It can go any number of ways. Sometimes, their faction is in power. They are drunk on it, they feel invincible. Why not help themselves to Satan’s pet? Sometimes they are recently deposed. They are bitter and smarting, and there he is, barely holding a rank worth mentioning. Who does he think he is, to come and go as he pleases? Shouldn’t he be taken down a peg? Sometimes they’re about to make a move, and want a sign that they’re going to succeed. If they can take from something Satan values, then why shouldn’t they be able to have more power?

He learns, all the nooks and crannies and backdoors that Hell still has, because running is still his preferred form of survival. He learns to translate the shifts of moods and power and alliances onto the realms of Hell, and assign each one a risk assessment: which is less dangerous, which is more safe? He learns to see fights coming, learns to use whatever is around him to prepare for their arrival. He learns which fights he might win if he puts effort into it, and which he is bound to lose. 

He wonders, once, weighed down with chains in Mammon’s realm that both are and are not like the ones Ocypete first used to bring him low, if maybe he shouldn’t fight. If maybe he should just grit his teeth and let them get it over with. 

It might hurt less. Or, it might encourage them to do it more often. It might take something from him, if he capitulated instead of struggling, that he might miss, someday, when he is less tired. So he keeps fighting, then. 

There’s more. Of course there is. Years of trauma can’t be exorcised in a single night, much less some millennia's worth of trauma. But this isn’t an exorcism. It’s a warning. It’s a prophecy about the price of survival Crowley’s learned to pay, and that Aziraphale himself must pay, if he wishes to live. 

So, for the time being, history ends here.


	4. Chapter 4

Back to Mayfair, then. 

A demon and an angel are still sitting side by side, on a couch in front of a table which still holds a scrap of prophecy and a bottle of absinthe. The prophecy has done its job. The bottle of absinthe is not quite so full. Aziraphale has helped himself to three glasses as Crowley spoke. 

“I don’t think they’ll draw it out.” Crowley is speaking still. “Not with holy water as the end. It’s not comfortable, having that stuff nearby. Whatever exchange they have going is going to have to be done quickly, so they won’t wait to get it, not even to punish me. But I don’t think it’ll be nothing either.”

The apartment is intimidatingly modern: spacious, uncluttered. Open-floor concept. There’s nothing at Aziraphale’s back but the couch, which is too low for comfort.

“Hastur, almost certainly. It’ll- he’ll make it hurt. He likes it that way, and I killed his- basically his husband, so. Yeah. He’ll definitely make it hurt.”

Aziraphale is trying to look at Crowley as he speaks. He feels like he should- like if nothing else he should be able to bear witness to this, should be able not to flinch in the face of his friend’s suffering. But he can’t. He keeps expecting, when he can only see it out of the corner of his eyes, for the table to be a desk, and there to be someone seated on the other side of it. So he stares straight ahead, and drinks. 

“Beelzebub or maybe Dagon will be there. They might just watch or add their commentary- Dagon, in particular, doesn’t normally go for sexual things. Still. They’ve both done it before, I wouldn’t be shocked if they wanted one last go. Ashtoreth, most likely. I did take her name for a bit. Had her permission, of course, but she thought I was using it to influence the Anti-Christ towards greater evil, and that turned out to be a dud, so I don’t think she’s very happy with me right now. Mammon is also a possibility, he’ll definitely want one last round with me. He’d probably want to go first, he’s- he’s very into the whole aesthetic appeal of things, which I wouldn’t expect to have after Hastur’s had his go. Mulciber has been on the outs for the better part of a century, I doubt he’ll make the short list. Belphegor takes too long, so he’s probably out too. Leviathan… I hope not, I really hope not, but I can’t think of a reason _why_ not, so I wouldn’t count them out either.”

Crowley has not been drinking, and he also has not been looking anywhere but his drink as he spoke. He looks up now, at Aziraphale’s face. There are more emotions there than Aziraphale himself would have been able to put a name to, and all of them are distressing. Fear is fairly prominent. 

“Or,” Crowley says, with false cheer. “Or maybe none of that will happen. I mean, they’ll need someone from Heaven to come bring them the holy water. Maybe the angel, whoever they are, will intervene. I can’t imagine that Heaven much likes rape. That- that’s definitely one of ours.”

Aziraphale’s grown used to Crowley. It’s a terrible thing to say about the person in the world who is most dear to him, but it’s also generally all he’ll allow himself to think of the two of them. He is used to Crowley: specifically, he is used to Crowley giving voice to every question and doubt he cannot even bring himself to think about too directly. It’s a shock, then, to hear words coming out of his mouth that sound _naive_. 

“They wouldn’t,” Aziraphale says softly. “Intervene, that is.” He considers a fourth glass, but the third is still sitting thickly on his tongue, and the need to speak clearly is currently more pressing than the need to be numb. “I know they wouldn’t, no matter who they send.”

Crowley’s face goes utterly blank. In his chest, his lungs still and his heart stops. “You... do?”

Aziraphale slumps in his seat, far down enough that his shoulders and the back of his neck are no longer exposed. “It’s not so bad, you must understand. What goes on in Heaven. Truly, it’s nothing so bad as what you describe as going on in Hell.”

‘Do you know,’ Crowley almost says. ‘I think that’s the worst possible thing you could have said.’ It takes him long enough to force words out of his mouth for him to reconsider. “Who?” he says instead. 

It takes Aziraphale a while to answer. He takes several deep breaths. He reaches for the absinthe, which is now impossible to grab hold of without sitting back up. Crowley hands him his own untouched glass instead. Aziraphale knocks it back without bothering to pretend to taste it. 

“Gabriel. The Archangel Gabriel,” he says, at long last. That's another shock: how relieved he feels at being able to say it. “That’s it. It’s just him. The others- they know, they must all know, by now, whether they’ve seen it directly or not. But he’s the only one who’s actually done anything- to me, at least.”

“And how for long?”

“Not so long,” Aziraphale says. “Not- not so long as it’s been going on for you, at least. A few centuries. Not quite a millennia. That is, well.” He sighs, and looks straight ahead. The table is not a desk, there is no Archangel seated across from him, and Crowley…

Aziraphale holds out a hand, and then has the thought that perhaps Crowley might not want to touch. Before he can retract it, Crowley’s taken it, very gently. Aziraphale shivers, but his grip tightens, so Crowley doesn’t pull his hand back either. 

“Heaven isn't as you remember it, my dear,” Aziraphale says. He still can’t look anywhere but straight ahead, but having Crowley’s hand in his helps. “It changed, after the War. I don’t think he could have gotten away with it, otherwise. I don’t think I’d have let it go on for so long.”


	5. Chapter 5

Aziraphale remembers Heaven before the War. It was a warm place, often cheerful and giddy, and certainly a great deal more friendly than it was now. Sometimes it even got downright boisterous. 

That changes, after the War. Part of it is simple numbers: between the dead and the damned the Heavenly Host has less than half as many angels as they'd previously had. Part of it is simple demographics: so many of the damned were their brightest, their loudest, their most charismatic and curious. The rest of it is policy: everything now has one single guiding principle, a clear chain of command, and a universally accepted code of conduct. No one wants to risk a second rebellion. No one wants to risk a Fall- and in that time just after the War, it often seems that they are three newly-invented seconds away from a second one. So the word comes down from on high to conform, and they conform. They are angels, and angels do not disobey.

By and large, Aziraphale is aware of these changes, but at first, they don’t really affect him. His posting is not in Heaven, but on Earth, and though he doesn’t quite mean to, it’s Earth where he ends up spending the majority of his time.

This ends up making things very difficult, whenever he has to return to Heaven.

Here on Earth, Aziraphale knows, there are informal networks whose entire purpose is to inform others about despicable bosses and how to avoid them: don’t get into an elevator alone with Smith, keep the office door open when meeting with Jones, and whatever you do don’t work late with Ross. That sort of thing. 

Aziraphale presumes that there are similar networks in Heaven by now, but he’s not privy to them. He spends so much of his time on Earth that the shifts in Heaven’s culture, manner of dress, and even architecture often take him by surprise. One day, everyone is wearing robes, as they have been wearing for thousands of years, and then the next it’s bedazzled vests and turbans that make him feel naked with his bare head, and once he’s got the hang of that then suddenly it’s all togas all the time. 

It’s the wing grooming that trips him up, with Gabriel. At some point, it became the sort of thing you either took care of yourself, took care of for an intimate friend, or went to a professional about. At some point after that, Gabriel ends a performance review with a request for help with his wings, and Aziraphale, in ignorance of the first point, thinks nothing of it, much less of having the favor returned. 

It’s nearly two centuries later, when he’s stewing in the corner of the Michaelmas party wishing desperately that he could have brought a book, that he overhears enough of another conversation to realize that, actually, it’s terribly inappropriate to do such a thing, especially in a work setting. 

Almost two centuries: that’s twenty performance reviews, sixteen informal clarifications, four reprimands, and thirty-eight staff meetings. Almost all of them were also wing grooming sessions in the end. He considers going to someone- Uriel, perhaps, or wasn’t there meant to be some kind of Host Resource Office under Archangel Sedakiel?- but he can’t imagine how he’s going to answer the inevitable question of why he let it go on for so long. ‘Sorry, I try not to come up here very often, and had no idea that the mores had changed?’

For all he knows, someone sent around a memo. He’s never received such a memo, but that’s not going to be much of an excuse for the powers that be. Trying to deflect next time Gabriel asks seems like a much better option. So that’s what he does, the very next time they meet.

It doesn't work. He just sounds very concerned when Aziraphale tries to leave, and asks all sorts of questions that he doesn’t actually want to answer. _Come on, Aziraphale, what’s gotten into you? Do you have something else going on on Earth? Is it just stress? You know that I can reassign you, right? All you need to do is ask._

That last one is a threat. He doesn’t quite think of it as such at the time, and he’s not sure Gabriel realizes that his position here on Earth is something Aziraphale desperately wants to keep until he notices Aziraphale’s reaction. But it’s a threat, and after that conversation, Gabriel knows it’s one that works. 

He grooms Gabriel’s wings, and gets out of having his own groomed into return. He returns to Earth, and he gets so drunk that the entire rest of the year is one long hangover. 

It gets worse, from there. There’s a lot more touching: arms thrown over his shoulders, hands resting at the nape of his neck. He doesn’t get out of having his wings groomed again, and Gabriel begins to take longer and longer to do it. 

He can’t articulate, even to himself, why he has such a cold pit of dread in him during these encounters. He wouldn’t have thought anything of it before the War. He never thought anything of it before he realized that this was no longer the done thing. And he knows now that this is inappropriate, yes, but Gabriel’s his superior officer. He’s asking for this, and as an angel he can’t disobey. Not if he wants to stay an angel, at least. 

It all comes to a head nearly a century later, after Joan of Arc’s death. They’re supposed to be celebrating it. Aziraphale, who has now watched precisely one thousand humans burn at the stake and had considered this one something of a friend, is not in a celebratory mood. Gabriel notices, and offers to take him back to his office for some quiet. 

He knows it’s not going to be just quiet, but he honestly isn’t expecting things to go any further than they already have. And, he thinks, maybe, just maybe, when Gabriel is grooming his wings, he can close his eyes and pretend that someone he actually cares for is offering actual comfort. 

Of course, it doesn’t go like that. He shuts the door to Gabriel’s office, and lets Gabriel place a hand on his shoulder, and then-

Gabriel is very careful to phrase it as a favor he is offering, which Aziraphale is free to accept or deny as he chooses. He can accept the chair, or deny it and return to the party. He can accept Gabriel’s hand on his thigh, or he can deny it and talk about why he doesn’t want to be at the party. He can accept Gabriel’s offer of making him feel good for a while, or he can deny it and explain why the idea of Joan’s ascension to Heaven upsets him.

That’s the first time. The rest are more or less the same, a pattern that holds itself sickeningly constant. Most of the time, at least, it’s the same: no actual threats that anyone would be able to call threats with one hundred percent certainty, a halfway decent illusion of consent. The sex itself is generally unpleasant, but not to the point of pain.

Most of the time. Usually. Gabriel has a temper. Every so often he loses it. He can always tell when that’s happening- everyone in Gabriel’s office radiates misery, and clearly has been miserable for some time before he arrives. At least half of these times, Gabriel is in the middle of yelling at some underling of his when he arrives. 

Those times generally hurt- less a matter of deliberate sadism, and more a matter of complete disregard for his comfort. 

He almost prefers those encounters. It’s more honest- it stops him from feeling like maybe he’s imagining the predatory intent behind all of this. And, as a bonus, Gabriel generally leaves him be for a few years afterwards, out of guilt or shame or whatever emotion he has about it. 

Every so often- but not whenever Gabriel’s having a tantrum- Aziraphale tries leaving after the business portion of things is through. Gabriel never lets him. That, too, is reassuring in its way. It means that he’s not imagining that he can’t say no either. 

He considers trying to report it. There _is_ a Host Resources Office and it _is_ under Archangel Sedakiel, and there _are_ no less than six ways he can walk to there from Gabriel’s office. He never actually enters it. He can’t, even at the depths of his loyalty to Heaven, make himself believe that it would do any good. Gabriel is an Archangel, his direct superior, and Aziraphale knows he has a reputation for weaknesses of the flesh. A good meal, high quality alcohol, material objects, and sex are all variations on the same thing, for most angels. His word simply isn’t credible. 

And, of course, it becomes obvious as time goes by, that everyone _knows_.

Well. They don’t _know_ know. If you lined the Host up and got an honest answer from each of them, probably most of them would consider Aziraphale to be, if not the aggressor, than certainly the instigator. Gabriel likes his human suits and his human exercise machines, but Aziraphale is the one with the reputation, after all. 

They would all know that his meetings with Gabriel almost inevitably end in sex, though. 

Michael might know a more truthful account, as she and Gabriel have always been close. Then again, maybe that makes it more likely that Gabriel lies to her about it. He can never tell what Uriel is thinking, much less what she knows. Sandalphon would probably find it funny, and it’s distressingly easy to picture the two of them laughing about it. He doesn’t know any of the other Archangels well enough to gauge their level of probably knowledge. He’s never even met Archangel Sedakiel. 

The angels who work directly for Gabriel in Heaven probably have some idea that it’s at least unhealthy. They can’t not, especially since the latest shift in the architecture of Heaven, when everyone suddenly works in open expanses of white and glass. Gabriel’s office has two glass walls, which go opaque at the snap of his fingers. Aziraphale believes him when he says that they block the sight of the inside of his office completely for the first three years. And then he ends up waiting outside Gabriel’s office while it’s in privacy mode, and he can see him in there in silhouette, talking with another angel. 

He’s not doing anything to them, not physically at least. Aziraphale can make out their outlines and how they maintain a respectful distance from one another. That just means that when he goes in there and Gabriel inevitably does not maintain any kind of distance at all, that the whole office will be able to see it. He does wonder, just for a moment, if a swirling vortex ending in a pool of sulfur opening beneath him might be a mercy. 

He still goes in when he’s called. He still does his best to avoid the eyes of anyone in Heaven as he leaves. He still manages to catch one or two pitying looks from Gabriel’s office workers. He tries not to begrudge them. He knows, better than most, that angels don’t get to disobey.


	6. Chapter 6

There is still, after all is said and all is done, Mayfair. There is still an intimidatingly modern apartment, as open and uncluttered as Hell is not. There is is still an angel and a demon, trying to convince themselves that they’ve chosen wisely. 

The scrap of prophecy has disappeared, unnoticed by all. Most of the absinthe is gone too. Dawn is fast approaching, and with it, their inevitable kidnappings and executions.

“I had this whole- this whole ritual for it, you know?” says Aziraphale. While still angelic enough- or so the hope is- he’s now also lanky and ginger haired. “A special suit. I’d miracle it clean, put it on, go up to Heaven, come back down here, miracle it clean again and then hang it up on the door of my wardrobe away from the rest of my clothing. And then I’d eat an entire container of chocolate ice cream by myself because it was safe enough to indulge in, but I knew that he’d hate it.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t think you liked chocolate ice cream.”

“At this point, I’m not sure that I do. I never eat it at any other time- not on its own, at least.”

Crowley- still a demon, just as hopefully as Aziraphale is still an angel- tips back a head of blond white curls and hums thoughtfully. “I didn’t really do anything like that. I’ve got a first aid kit under the sink in the kitchen, for when it got really bad. Couldn’t always miracle it all better all at once, sometimes.”

“You could have come to me,” Aziraphale says. He doesn’t say the _even thoughs_: even though you couldn’t tell me, even though I couldn’t tell you, even though neither of us could have done anything to stop it, not really. The unspoken addendums are understood, and understood to be too painful to speak of right now.

“I did,” Crowley replies. “Once I got myself patched up, and provided we were in the same area and on speaking terms with one another, I went to you. It helped. It helps.”

“Well, good. I'm glad.”

They sit in silence for a time. The sky outside lightens. Two rooms over, the plants rustle in fierce competition for the sustenance that provides. The demon’s feet are in the angel’s lap, or maybe it’s vice-versa, or maybe it’s both, or maybe it just doesn’t matter any more. 

Wordlessly, their eyes meet in agreement. The night is over, and the day must be faced. The absinthe reappears in the bottle. The prophecy’s absence is noted, but ultimately deemed unimportant. Shoes are put on, and then hastily taken off when they’re discovered to be on the wrong feet. 

With the right shoes- Aziraphale’s shoes- on his feet, Crowley hesitates at the threshold, one hand on his doorknob. Once he leaves, he’ll have to be Aziraphale and all that implies… and Aziraphale will have to be Crowley, with all of his implications in turn. “I can’t help but feel like you’re getting the worst part of this deal.”

“I’m not,” Aziraphale replies. “It might normally be very ‘lie back and think of England’ with Gabriel-” He waves a hand out towards the window, towards England. Towards sushi and the Ritz. Towards West End musicals, bebop, operas, and Hamlet still being played on stage somewhere nearby in perpetuity. Towards the wreckage of the Bentley and the ashes of the bookshop and everything else he wasn’t meant to actually care about. “- but he’s going to be very upset with me. It’s not going to be pretty, my dear. He- he’s going to hurt you.”

“_They’re_ going to hurt _you_.” Hence why he feels like he’s leaving Aziraphale with the rawer end of the deal: he’ll have more than just a pissed-off Archangel to deal with, and none of the Lords of Hell will have any kind of squeaky-clean image to maintain. “A lot.” 

“And then we’ll show them that we can’t be hurt, not in any permanent fashion,” Aziraphale replies with the imperfect faith of someone who knows that, ultimately, they can only guess as to what comes next. “We’ll show them that they should leave us be, and then we’ll come home.”

“You’re going to be dealing with experienced torturers, though,” Crowley can’t help but point out. 

Aziraphale snorts. He could call Gabriel any number of things, right now, but he wouldn’t call him inexperienced. “I would not be surprised in the least to learn that Gabriel has dabbled in _enhanced interrogation techniques_.”

They smile thinly at one another. Crowley had gotten a commendation for the neat little turn of phrase. He’s gotten many commendations for things waterboarding-adjacent since the Spanish Inquisition, all of them unmerited. They might be the only two beings who know that, however.

“Besides, it’s not all worse,” Aziraphale continues.

“Oh?”

“I’ve always wondered what it might be like, to try and fight him off,” Aziraphale admits. “It’s- well. It’ll be something different, at least.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re feeling up to it, because you’ll have to fight,” Crowley says. “They’ll expect it from me.” 

Aziraphale nods, lost in thought. “You- well,” he says after a moment. “If I were going up there, I wouldn’t have much left to lose, would I? Nothing Gabriel could hold over me, at least.”

“Huh?”

“I’m just saying, if the opportunity should arise, I don’t think a well-placed bite would be out of character at this juncture.”

“Ha!” Crowley’s laugh is more surprise than delight. “Well, I’ll try to keep the fangs in.”

“I should hope so,” Aziraphale lifts a hand up. It hovers for a second over his throat, wanting to worry at the bowtie that was around Crowley’s neck. He rubs the back of his neck instead. No one in Hell would notice the momentary pause in his mannerisms. No one in Hell knows him well enough. “I’ll need to brandish them myself, to pull this off.” He smiles. 

“I’m tired,” Crowley blurts out, before he can think about it too much. “I’m absolutely exhausted, really.”

“I know, my dear,” Aziraphale says. He’s saying it using Crowley’s vocal chords, and Crowley is absolutely certain that his voice has never sounded so soft and tender before. Crowley is also absolutely wrong, as Aziraphale himself can attest. “It’s- just one last push, and then it’ll be done.”

“No, I mean- not now. I’m not tired _now_.” That’s not exactly truthful, but then again, whatever exhaustion pulls at him now is not quite the same as the exhaustion he’s trying to speak of. “In mean, in Hell. It’s tiring, fighting all the time, and I’d like to think that I’ve hidden it from them, but I’m pretty sure they’ve guessed. So, if it gets too much and you’ve got to ‘lie back and think of England’ for a bit, then I don’t think they’ll notice.”

There are three steps between where they stand. Aziraphale crosses them without thought, and places a careful hand on his arm. “Thank you.”

In a somewhat kinder universe, they might have felt able to kiss then. It might even have not been the first time. But, of course, if they’d lived in a kinder universe, then Crowley would likely have left the apartment already. 

In this universe, they embrace, slightly awkward with limbs that aren’t their own and all the things they have yet to say between them. 

When they part, Aziraphale reaches out to straighten the bowtie around Crowley’s neck.

“Good luck, angel,” he says.

Crowley reaches up and pushes the sunglasses up Aziraphale’s nose. “Mind how you go, dear.” 

And then he’s gone, as ready to face down Heaven as he ever will be.


	7. Chapter 7

It would have been something, if they’d managed to dissuade their attackers. If Hastur took notice of the polite smile on Crowley’s face, and Gabriel of the too-broad one on Aziraphale’s; if Crowley’s voice offered _Do you want to wait for the rest to show up, or should we just get right to it?_ and Aziraphale’s voice threatened _Do you know, I think I might bite?_ and that took them aback; if any of the powers that be in Heaven or Hell had recognized that they had pushed their agents too far and perhaps now might be the time to leave well enough alone. If they hadn’t both been left with the desperate thought/prayer/howl of _This is the last time you’ll touch this body, you’ve already hurt him for the last time and you’ll never know it and you’ll never harm him again._

It would have been something, wouldn’t it? But, of course, it doesn’t happen like that. 

Aziraphale does better with the fighting than he’d feared he would. Crowley’s body is whip thin and whip fast where his own his is solid and steady. He is less able to take a punch, but more able to dodge; damage is dealt with fangs and kicks as opposed to punches and blades. It’s a very different fighting style from the one he uses so sparingly these days, and he doesn’t quite manage to get it right. 

The demons are a bit too busy to notice. Crowley wins fights with cleverness and pragmatism, and because he does his best to see them coming and plan for his own victory. Aziraphale wins fights because that’s what he was made to do. 

There’s a vicious satisfaction to it, knowing that he can deal back at least some of the pain he’s about to experience, blood-slick and sharp toothed and _angry_ in ways he normally can’t let himself feel. Ichor and venom coat his tongue long before anything else dares to try to force its way inside. He grins as he spits, staining the robes he can tell Mammon keeps meticulously clean. 

What follows is nothing too far beyond what Gabriel’s fits of temper have taught him to endure. There’s a ticking clock, and they want him to be able to walk. It limits their options quite a bit. They even clothe him afterwards, in more-or-less accurate replicas of the outfit they’d shredded earlier. He has the pain-shocked thought that he’s going to have to ask Crowley about the bathing costume later. He hasn’t seen one of those since Edwardian times. 

The trial takes longer than expected, if only because he’s not actually expecting anything like a trial. But, there’s a long recitation of charges, and witnesses called to the stand, and they even give him a chance to say a few last words. 

Aziraphale keeps his feet planted. It doesn’t hurt too badly, if he keeps his movements slow and deliberate. “This is a new jacket, and I’d hate to ruin it. Mind if I take it off?” 

He flicks Holy Water at the demons assembled to watch Crowley die, asks the Lords of Hell for a rubber duck, and shocks Michael into giving him a towel. 

“I think I should be left alone from now on, don’t you?”

He’s learned, over the centuries of the Arrangement, to twist his own miraculous powers into something more demonic. It makes temptations easier, and makes the Arrangement harder to track. He doesn’t bother to twist his power as he dries himself off, Michael’s suddenly not-quite-so-damp towel hung around his neck. And then he does twist it, to heal over the stinging bite left on Crowley’s thigh by Leviathan. 

He goes back and forth, twisting and untwisting and sometimes stopping mid twist as he heals the bruises and cuts from Crowley’s body. The Lords of Hell and the Archangel Michael can tell the difference, especially at this distance, especially when they are paying him such close attention.

He finds that he quite likes the way confusion gives way to fear as they realize that they truly have no idea what he is capable of. Of what Crowley is capable of. 

He dresses. Michael gathers up the holy water. They have a nice awkward walk back to the exit. 

The escalator up is next to a lift. Michael presses the call button. Aziraphale doesn’t leave, not just yet. 

“Oh, is that where that elevator goes?” he asks. “I’ve always wondered.”

Michael doesn’t so much as look at him. “We’ll have your boyfriend’s ashes sent down to you for burial. I assume the consecrated ground of a graveyard is not an issue for you.”

“Do you really think he’ll burn any more than I dissolved?” he asks, grinning as Michael glares at him. He digs his hands into Crowley’s pockets, to stop himself from fiddling with buttons the demon doesn’t actually have. “Honestly, if you’re immune to it, hellfire just feels like a nice hot shower. I’d say he deserves that, after what you put him through.”

“We put him through nothing. Aziraphale was given every opportunity to repent,” Michael says. “He refused.”

_You’re damn right I did,_ Aziraphale thinks, and then very carefully pushes it down. There’s a reason he’s having this conversation instead of making a clean getaway, after all. “After what Gabriel put him through, then.”

Michael starts. She is, Aziraphale thinks bitterly, more surprised that Crowley knows enough to insinuate, than she is surprised by the insinuations themselves. 

“Well, that answers that,” he says tiredly, and then, finally, takes his leave. 

Crowley, too, finds it easier to play his part than he’d feared. Gabriel doesn’t give him the chance to bite. He’s careful to avoid the face entirely, restricting himself only to part of Aziraphale’s body that are normally covered by clothes. 

Aziraphale, it must be said, wears an awful lot of clothing. There’s very little that won’t be covered, when it’s back on him. 

Even after Aziraphale’s warnings, he’s still not expecting Gabriel to be so _violent_. But it’s also nothing he hasn’t lived through before, dozens of times over. He can handle it. 

Aziraphale has trained his body into stillness, he can feel that, something like muscle memory that makes him want to go ragdoll limp at the first touch of Gabriel’s hand. He can’t help but squirm a little, or to try and curl up to protect himself from the worst of the pain. It makes Gabriel angry, but he doesn’t seem to ascribe it to Aziraphale acting out of character, so Crowley thinks it must be close enough to usual.

He doesn’t want to think about this being usual for Aziraphale. He doesn’t want to think about him being in this much pain, about him suffering this much. He doesn’t want to wonder how often every so often is, in Aziraphale’s mind- once a century? Twice? More?

He makes himself think of better things. Of England, yes: the bookshop with its new-old books on the sales floor and its new-old vintages stored in the back, and the Bentley he’s been assured is back and whole but he hasn’t actually seen yet. He also thinks about Seville, during the Inquisition, when Aziraphale had come to scrape him off the floor of the tavern, about perching with Aziraphale on a rooftop overlooking Times Square and laughing about Y2K, about oysters in Rome after one of his very worst assignments, about dancing around one another in Avignon by day and coordinating their movements by night, and meeting up later to complain when the Vatican called it “the Babylonian Captivity of the Papacy”. Aziraphale has been his refuge for centuries. He hopes he’s been Aziraphale’s too, in some way. 

The trial is shorter than he expects, because he’s expecting one. What he gets is a summary execution. They don’t even let him say a few last words uninterrupted. 

Blowing a plume of fire at them can’t be really in character, but importantly they can’t be more shocked by it than they are by his refusal to die. He enjoys it: the fear on their faces and the soothing heat of the flames that works some of the tension Gabriel’s put into Aziraphale’s shoulders out. 

Then he steps out of the fire. The Archangels take a few steps back, clearly afraid of him. Of Aziraphale. 

He spreads Aziraphale’s wings. They are a downy angelic white; they are also bedraggled and missing feathers in large clumps, where Gabriel had gripped so tightly that they’d come out entirely. A few loose feathers flutter to the floor, along with a few drops of blood; Aziraphale had molted twice in the past decade alone, thanks to the constant stress of the end times, and there had been several blood feathers still coming in. 

Just as Aziraphale has learned to twist his powers to make them more demonic, Crowley has learned to untwist his back to a more angelic state. He stands in front of them, smiling placidly and holding Gabriel’s gaze as he uses something that’s close enough to Grace for government work to fill his wings back in again. Aziraphale has to be undeniably _not_ Fallen, in order for this to work. 

“Well, I hope you enjoyed yourself,” he says softly, addressing Gabriel. “As you can see, I have no reason to ever allow you to fuck me again.”

Gabriel takes a giant step back. Uriel jolts a bit in shock. Sandalphon continues to look as petrified as he did when Crowley first walked out of the infernal flames, and probably doesn’t hear him at all. 

It probably won’t matter, that he's said it aloud, and put it so bluntly. At best, Gabriel might get a slap on the wrist, but neither he nor Aziraphale will be anywhere near him to see it when he does. He just doesn’t want to leave without biting _something_.

“I’ll see myself out, shall I?” he says, folding Aziraphale’s wings back as he does. None of the Archangels say anything as he leaves. 

It takes him a while to make his way back to the stairs. Heaven is all pristine white and the odd synthetic plant- it’s hard to navigate, and he definitely gets himself lost at least twice. But nearly eighty years worth of driving with Aziraphale in the passenger's seat have taught him how to look like he always knows exactly where he is in relation to where he’s going, and no one stops him. 

Aziraphale is waiting for him in his body when he arrives, looking whole and smiling. They switch back, they dine at the Ritz, and a nightengale sings at Berkeley Square. It is the very first day of the rest of their lives. 

Not that it’s easy, of course, living the rest of their lives. There might be a very clear line between Before and After, but they have to go through the After as the people who survived the Before.

They spend that first night, and most of the following nights, together, Crowley able to sleep more easily for being watched over, and Aziraphale more able to feel better for being able to keep watch. It is a long time before they do anything but hold one another.

There is a history between then, shared but unspoken, of comfort sought after pain and humiliation they never thought to let the other see. There have been nights that might have been filled with motion and sound that are instead oddly full of stillness and silence, the difference marked but unremarked upon. There have been performance reviews and meetings that lined up and sent them running towards one another the very moment they felt free enough to do so. There have been dinners where Aziraphale had been absolutely sure that some mark of Gabriel’s had been visible to Crowley, and Crowley had been absolutely sure that Aziraphale could tell why he was holding himself so stiffly. Those time are no more, and they are no longer unspoken. 

There are things they feel deeply ashamed of, even more so for knowing that they have no reason to feel ashamed. It comes out, in the late night or early morning darkness, drunken and pained and relieved to be able to speak of it at all. 

_Sometimes I initiated it- seduced them, even, because it was easier than letting them catch me, because it would hurt less if I faked being willing, because the Lords of Hell respected one another’s claims to my body a lot more than they respected mine._

_Sometimes I half-convinced myself that he didn’t even know what he was doing was wrong, that he did care for me, in his own way. I don’t know why. It always made me feel worse, like I was the one taking advantage of him, somehow._

They don’t always know the right words to say to one another- often, they don’t know if there _are_ any right words that can be said to one another- but they are quick with their reassurances nevertheless. 

Then there are emotional issues to consider. 

Aziraphale has never been able to really let himself _feel_ all the fear and anger and bitterness and grief Gabriel inspired in him, and absent the pressure of Heaven it all starts bubbling up. He gets caught, sometimes, between the building need to let it out and the knowledge that Crowley is simultaneously the last person he wants to impose upon and the only person he can express those emotions to without being considered a lunatic. More would-be customers than usual leave his shop near tears. It’s part of the reason why Yelp eventually introduces negative stars into their ratings system. 

Crowley, meanwhile, has never let himself feel sexual pleasure. Unlike Aziraphale, he’s never had sex of his own free will this side of the Fall, and his memories of that before-time are hazy at best. Effectively, it’s never been something he’s done with affection, or even just for fun. He’s not sure he can let himself have that, even when he acknowledges that he wants to, even when Aziraphale tells him that he’d quite like it too. Sometimes he considers faking his enthusiasm, but he knows in the end that would be a hurt he caused Aziraphale, rather than a hurt he took upon himself for Aziraphale. 

They argue, at times. They always have, and they’ve always made up too. It’s messy and fragile, this life they fumble their way towards building in the After, since they both feel quite messy and fragile themselves. They’re determined, though: Heaven and Hell no longer bother them, and they have all the time in the world to work out how to put themselves to rights.

The future is, as always, ineffable, but whatever shape it takes, they know that they’ll make it there, together, wounds healed over into scars.


End file.
